March 8, 2010

It's Go Time for "Rush Radio 1200"

• MAINE
• NEW HAMPSHIRE
• MASSACHUSETTS
• VERMONT
• RHODE ISLAND
• CONNECTICUT
• NEW YORK
• NEW JERSEY
• PENNSYLVANIA
• CANADA
• CLASSIFIEDS
• FROM THE ARCHIVES

Q: Why is Howie Carr walking into the WRKO studios very slowly today?

A: Well, there's no Rush...

*That groaner, which neatly sums up the big radio news this week from eastern MASSACHUSETTS, comes to us courtesy of fellow radio observer (and WMWM weekend host) Bob Nelson, who's been as absorbed as anyone in the long saga of Clear Channel's launch of a new talk radio station in Boston.

After spending many years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars moving suburban WKOX (1200 Framingham) into Boston, Clear Channel initially moved fairly slowly on changing the AM station's format, leaving the Spanish tropical "Rumba" programming in place on 1200 for a year or so after WKOX had powered up to 50,000 watts from a new city of license, Newton, and a new transmitter site within sight of the Boston city line.

But for all that deliberation, today's launch of the long-expected talk format on what's now WXKS, "Rush Radio 1200," still ends up having the feel of a - pardon the pun - rush job. The new station was apparently due to launch April 1, but once it became clear that Clear Channel was pulling its Premiere Radio Network programming away from established affiliate WRKO (680 Boston), that date was moved up somewhat abruptly, leaving "Rush Radio" to launch without a morning show or a fully fleshed-out weekend schedule.

"Rush Radio" debuts at noon today with its namesake, Rush Limbaugh - and for the next few weeks at least, Rush will double as the station's morning man, with "best-of" reruns filling the 6-9 AM slot until a promised (and as-yet-unannounced) local morning show makes its debut. The rest of the schedule is right off the bird: Sean Hannity at 3 PM, Jason Lewis (from KTLK-FM Minneapolis) at 6 PM, Mark Levin at 9 PM, Coast-to-Coast AM at midnight and Glenn Beck at 9 AM. Weekend mornings are still "TBA," and weekend afternoons and evenings are all "best-of" shows from Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck.

Faced with the inevitable loss of one of its flagship shows, Entercom's WRKO wasted no time lining up a local host to go up against Limbaugh beginning this afternoon. Charley Manning is a veteran Republican political consultant in Boston, and no stranger to radio talk, having been a co-host of WRKO's "Spin Doctors" show in the nineties as well as a commentator on WBZ (1030), WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WCVB-TV (Channel 5) in more recent years.

So how does it all stack up? Here's our armchair analysis:

Clear Channel knows how to program a successful talk station. Whether it's KFI in Los Angeles or WLW in Cincinnati or WOAI in San Antonio or WFLA in Tampa or even WHAM here in our hometown of Rochester, there's no shortage of examples of market-dominating Clear Channel talkers, albeit ones with a common thread: all have long histories of local full-service radio that long predate Clear Channel ownership.

When it comes to creating new talk stations, though, Clear Channel's more recent model has been far less local - and far less successful. In Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, Clear Channel found some traction by moving its Premiere talk lineup (Beck/Rush/Hannity/Coast-to-Coast) from established AM affiliates to new FM signals, and more recently it followed that model down south by launching "Rush Radio" in two North Carolina markets.

Along the way, though, the product appears to be getting skimpier and skimpier. While KTLK-FM Minneapolis serves as Jason Lewis' flagship station and WPGB Pittsburgh originates "Quinn and Rose" in the mornings and carries Pirates baseball, the North Carolina signals offer only low-budget local morning shows - which is apparently all the local content WXKS will provide in Boston, too, and that not even for a few weeks to come.

"Rush Radio" in Boston comes to the plate with a few more strikes against it, too: even with 50,000 watts of power, it will have by far the worst signal of Boston's three prominent talk stations, lacking even the limited suburban nighttime coverage of WRKO, much less the full-market FM signal of Greater Media's increasingly dominant WTKK (96.9).

And Boston is one of the most locally-focused talk markets in the country. As Charley Manning's inaugural guest today on WRKO, newly-elected senator Scott Brown, would gladly tell you, his come-from-behind win was powered in large part by support from Boston's local talkers on WRKO and WTKK. Limbaugh's numbers on WRKO lagged substantially behind his ratings at New York's WABC, and Hannity barely registered in the ratings when he was last heard in Boston on the now-defunct Salem talker WTTT (1150).

Will "Rush Radio" on WXKS do better than the old WTTT did? Clear Channel will certainly spend more on promotion, including on-air promos on sister FM station "Kiss 108" (WXKS-FM), whose Ed McMann is loaning his pipes to AM 1200 as the station's promo voice.

But with a middling signal, a lack of local talk content, little to no local news and strong, spirited competition from WRKO and WTKK, it's hard to imagine "Rush Radio" ending up as much more than a second-tier talker in a market where only the strongest talkers thrive.

Entercom's not out of the woods yet, either: it still needs to fix the problematic Tom Finneran morning show, establish Manning as a daily solo talker and pay off the expensive Red Sox contract on sister station WEEI, while at the same time fending off an all-local FM lineup on WTKK. But it's becoming increasingly clear why Entercom didn't waste much energy fighting the removal of Rush to the new WXKS: absent some compelling talk about local issues, "Rush Radio" won't be much more than a niche player when the dust settles.

One more note about Clear Channel's AM lineup in Boston: while there was early word that "Rumba" would move up the dial to smaller sister WXKS (1430 Everett), it now appears that "Rumba" is gone (and its local staff with it), leaving the Spanish AC "Mia" format from Clear Channel's Premium Choice internal syndication in place on 1430, which now bears the WKOX calls.

*Still looking for examples of the loyalty Boston audiences show to stations and personalities who provide them with local content? Look no further than the mourning last week for Don Kent, who pioneered TV weather in Boston when he came to WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WBZ (1030) in 1951. Kent was already a broadcasting veteran, having begun his career on WMEX in 1935 and then on Quincy's WJDA after his service in World War II.

At WBZ, Kent's forecasts became an institution, and he was renowned for the accuracy of his predictions during a career that encompassed everything from Hurricane Carol in 1954 to the Blizzard of '78.

Kent retired from WBZ-TV in 1983, but continued to be heard on radio for two more decades, most recently at WQRC.

He died March 2 in New Hampshire, where he had been living. Don Kent was 92.

*WBUR-FM (90.9 Boston) has set a start date and picked a host for the new daily edition of its "Radio Boston" talk show. Megna Chakrabarti, who's been a fill-in host on WBUR's "Here & Now," will take over from Jane Clayson, who's been hosting "Radio Boston" in its weekly incarnation, when the show goes daily on May 3. Iris Adler, late of New England Cable News, joins WBUR as executive producer of "Radio Boston." Clayson will remain with WBUR on a part-time basis as a fill-in "On Point" host; she'll also do some work for "Here & Now."

Out on Martha's Vineyard, five applicants lined up to bid for a new class A noncommercial facility on 104.3 in West Tisbury: Martha's Vineyard Community Radio, Hispanic Family Christian Network of Texas, Cape Cod Catholic Radio, Calvary Chapel of Cape Cod and New Bedford Christian Radio (which already owns WFHL 88.1 in New Bedford).

*There's a talk radio shuffle in RHODE ISLAND too, albeit on a much smaller scale. Citadel's WPRO (630 Providence) swaps timeslots next week for Buddy Cianci and Dan Yorke, giving Cianci the prime afternoon shift from 2-6 PM and moving the veteran Yorke to middays, from 10-2, up against Glenn Beck and the first two hours of Rush Limbaugh on competitor WHJJ (920).

*Thursday's the launch date for two CONNECTICUT radio veterans who are joining Cox's WCTZ (96.7 Port Chester NY) in the Stamford-Norwalk market. Peter Bush, most recently heard on WEBE (107.9 Westport) and on WKCI, WABC and WPLJ before that, will be doing mornings, while veteran programmer Pete Salant (most recently of WWYZ in Hartford) takes afternoons on "The Coast." To avoid the whole "Peter and Pete" thing, Salant will be using the air name "Mike Stone."

There's a new look coming to ABC affiliate WTNH (Channel 8) next month. After 13 years as "News Channel 8," WTNH will rebrand as simply "News 8," with a new logo that was unveiled during Sunday night's Oscars telecast.

Here's a "Where Are They Now?" coincidence: former WCTZ morning host Chris Duggan, more recently seen at WMAS in Springfield and WSNE in Providence, has just landed a new PD gig across the border at CJCH-FM (101.3 the Bounce) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he replaces Rob Basile.

And we're sorry to report the death of Vinnie Banda, whose "Saturday Morning Mayhem" was a fixture on the Waterbury radio dial, first on WWCO (1240) and for the last thirteen years on WATR (1320). Banda died Wednesday (March 3) after a battle with leukemia.

*In MAINE, Tory Ryden has departed Portland-market ABC affiliate WMTW-TV (Channel 8), where she'd been solo anchor at 6 and 11 since co-anchor Jon Camp's contract wasn't renewed. Ryden's resume includes anchor stints in Boston at WBZ-TV and WFXT, as well as earlier radio and TV work in Maine.

WMTW's former radio sisters have a new affiliation: WLVP (870 Gorham) and WLAM (1470 Lewiston) have picked up Citadel's True Oldies Channel satellite service, we hear.

Down the coast in Camden, MPBN's WMEP (90.5) came back on the air Friday afternoon, recovering faster than expected from the winter storm that damaged its antenna a week earlier.

*We know a little more now about the aftermath of that storm that ripped across NEW HAMPSHIRE a week ago, and it will be a long recovery for Saga's cluster of stations in Manchester. The sales and business staff of WZID/WMLL/WFEA have relocated to temporary quarters in Merrimack while cleanup crews replace waterlogged flooring and walls at their building at 500 N. Commercial Street, where thousands of gallons of water rushed through the office after the storms tore part of the roof off the structure. The on-air staff remains in the building, working around the damage as best they can. (Want to see the damage close-up? WZID's Jordan Wilder posted a video tour of the wreckage last week...)

*It's not quite a format change, but one of Steve Silberberg's Burlington, VERMONT stations has new calls and a new slogan. WLFE (102.3 Grand Isle) became WIER, "102.3 the Wire, High Voltage Rock" at the beginning of the month, complete with a new website at 1023thewire.com.

Over at the Vox cluster, Tara Madison is the new morning co-host at WEZF (92.9 Burlington), where she's inbound from WAZY in Lafayette, Indiana to take the seat long held by Lana Wilder on what's now the "Live with Nolan and Tara" morning show.

Click on the banner above to visit's NERW's 15th annual Year in Review, brought to you this year by these nice folks:

*The big headlines in NEW YORK over the weekend came from the suburbs of New York City, where dominant local cable giant Cablevision and broadcast behemoth ABC locked horns in one of those retransmission disputes that are becoming an increasingly common, and increasingly unpleasant, part of the media business landscape. There was a lot at stake in this particular dispute, which pulled New York's WABC-TV (Channel 7) out of millions of cable homes in the number-one TV market just hours before the Oscar telecast. (It also affected some carriage of sister station WPVI Philadelphia in central New Jersey.)

While both sides tried to rally public support ("Cablevision has betrayed you again," read WABC's crawl moments before channel 7 went dark in cable homes; "Stop the TV Tax," was Cablevision's take on Disney's demand for new retransmission-consent fees), public reaction suggests that viewers are becoming increasingly annoyed at all parties in these feuds, which invariably end - sooner or later - with cable carriage returning, and higher bills to consumers.

That appears to be the denoument in New York, where WABC-TV and WPVI were back on Cablevision a few minutes after the Oscars broadcast began, with final details of the arrangement still being hammered out.

*In Syracuse, the last pieces of the big Sports Shuffle of 2010 fell into place on Friday, as Galaxy launched ESPN Radio on its WTLA (1200 North Syracuse, and translator on 97.7) and WSGO (1440 Oswego, and translator on 100.1), as well as on its Utica sports stations WTLB (1310 Utica), WRNY (1350 Rome) and WIXT (1230 Little Falls).

CNYRadio.com reports on a few of the last bits of fallout from the shuffle, which pulled ESPN from Utica-market affiliate WNRS (1420 Herkimer) and Syracuse's WNSS (1260, now "Score" WSKO): while WSKO is now up and running with a lineup including Don Imus, Sporting News Radio and local host Brent Axe, WNRS has picked up Fox Sports Radio during the day and Bloomberg's business news in the afternoons and evenings. WNRS was already an Imus affiliate, and he remains in place in morning drive on the station now known as "1420 AM, the Fox."

Syndicated host Delilah, who'd aired on WNSS' Citadel sister station WLTI (105.9) before its flip to talk last week, has landed on Clear Channel's WYYY-FM (94.5) in evenings, following the equally syndicated John Tesh.

Amidst the chaos at the big Syracuse clusters, there's a change at the Craig Fox stations: Yo Sunny Joe, who'd been with "Movin" WMVN (100.3 Sylvan Beach) since 2007, was pink-slipped from his position as production director for the cluster (which also includes country WOLF-FM and Radio Disney affiliate WOLF) and as afternoon jock on Movin.

But wait, there's more: Jon Alvarez, who'd been hosting the only local weekday hour on talker WFBL (1390 Syracuse)/WMCR (1600 Oneida), ended his noontime show Friday after just five months at the station. If there was a connection between Alvarez' departure and the publicity he received a couple of weeks ago for creating a quickly-deleted Facebook fan page for that Texas pilot who flew his plane into an IRS office, nobody's talking about it.

In Ithaca, WFIZ (95.5 Odessa) is shifting its air talent around: PD "Corey" moves from nights to mornings, alongside new hire "Nikii," replacing "Birdman," who's no longer at the station.

*The FCC's application window for several new noncommercial frequencies around the country slammed shut last week, and religious broadcasters made up most of the applicant pool for the available channels around NERW-land.

In Rhinebeck, near Kingston, 11 applicants piled on in hopes of winning the construction permit for a new class A signal on 102.5: Poughkeepsie's Marist College, Albany public broadcaster WMHT, PZK Hudson Foundation Radio, Texas-based Grace Public Radio, Birds of a Feather Media Ltd., Counterpoint Communications, Christian Media Associates, Calvary Chapel of the Hudson Valley, Somos la Llave del Futuro, Dennis Jackson's Foothills Public Radio and Michael Celenza's JCM Radio of NY, Inc.

Near Buffalo, 10 applicants filed for 92.1A in Amherst: Medaille College, Indiana-based Triangle Foundation, Texas-based Hispanic Family Christian Network, Lockport Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Williamsville's Helen M. Randall Memorial Baptist Church, Monument of Faith Fellowship Center (the church located in the historic WKBW studios/Churchill Tabernacle at 1420 Main Street!), Calvary Chapel of the Niagara Frontier, Miami-based Call Communications Group, Michigan-based Smile FM and Long Island-based JCM Radio of NY.

Just south of Binghamton, six broadcasters applied for 93.3A in Susquehanna, PA: Montrose Broadcasting (which already owns WPEL/WPEL-FM), Calvary Chapel of Russell, Binghamton's Davis College, the Broome County Urban League, Redeemer Broadcasting (which owns WFSO in Olivebridge), South Carolina's Evangelical Broadcasting Group and JCM Radio of NY.

The FCC will eventually sort through the applicants, using its usual noncommercial criteria that include the coverage area proposed by each applicant (which will be very similar for each of these applications, since they're constrained by having to cover a predetermined city of license), applicants' existing broadcast holdings and - perhaps most decisively this time - whether or not the applicants are locally-based and have an established presence in the community.

On Long Island, Barnstable Broadcasting missed its March 1 target date to flip WLVG (96.1 Center Moriches) to a Suffolk County simulcast of "K-Joy" WKJY (98.3 Hempstead) - but it does at least have new calls for 96.1, which is now WKJI.

Multicultural Radio Broadcasting is selling WNYG (1440 Babylon) to the Spanish-language religious broadcaster that's been leasing its airtime. Radio Cantico Nuevo will pay $150,000 for the station, but that's just the beginning of the story, since it will also have to pay to move the station to its new city of license of Medford, out east, where WNYG has a construction permit to diplex off the towers of WLIM (1580 Patchogue). That move will get WNYG out of the way of a signal expansion at MRBI's WNSW (1430 Newark NJ). If Radio Cantico Nuevo weren't paying to relocate 1440, the station would have gone dark for good sometime soon, just as Babylon's other AM, WGLI 1290, did some years ago to clear the way for a power boost at WADO (1280 New York).

Syracuse's Mars Hill Network is getting a new signal in Richfield Springs, south of Utica. The new signal on 88.7 faced opposition from Schenectady's WRGB-TV (Channel 6), but the FCC dismissed WRGB's informal objection to the grant last week and issued a CP for 2.2 kW/226', vertical-only and quite directional from a site north of Richfield Springs and south of Herkimer.

It's been a long time since Steve Church was engineering - and hosting a talk show - at Buffalo's WBUF (92.9). Church went on to Cleveland's WMMS and then to fame and fortune as the founder and CEO of Telos Systems, whose phone hybrids are standard equipment in thousands of stations around the world. Now he's being honored with the NAB's Engineering Achievement Award, which he'll receive at the NAB Show engineering luncheon in Las Vegas next month.

Another "Where Are They Now?": Mick Lee, who was doing afternoons at Albany's WFLY (92.3) and nights/APD across town at WKKF (Kiss 102.3) a few years back, has been named PD at Clear Channel's WZFT (Z104.3) in Baltimore. Since leaving Albany in 2007, Lee's been assistant PD and afternoon jock at KKRZ in Portland, Oregon.

*It's been a quiet week in PENNSYLVANIA, where the long-pending move of WKVE (103.1) from Waynesburg to Mount Pleasant will take place sometime this week, when the new 103.1 signal launches with an "awesome rock" format that mixes current rock with classic cuts dating back to the sixties. The new WKVE will also be heard on a 104.1 translator in Waynesburg, while the existing 103.1 country format will remain on the air in Waynesburg on WANB (1210) and its translator at 105.1.

In Philadelphia, Jessie Jordan is out after five years on the night shift at Clear Channel's WIOQ (102.1 Philadelphia). She was also Q102's APD and music director, and now the station is looking for a replacement for all three tasks.

Erie's WQHZ (Z102.3) has named Dave Cook as its new afternoon jock; he's got a history down the road in Pittsburgh, at WBZZ (B94).

Family Life Ministries is again swapping calls on an unbuilt station in Laporte: the 90.9 there will be WCIN instead of WCIS, as it picks up a set of calls long in use in Cincinnati.

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*CANADA's only gay-targeted radio station wants more power. Evanov's CIRR (103.9 PROUD-FM) tells the CRTC that it's been struggling to reach its target audience with its current 50-watt signal from the Yonge/Eglinton area, and so it's requesting an increase in power from 50 watts to 128 watts DA (max ERP 250 watts), as well as a height increase to 156 meters from a new transmitter site at 2 West Bloor Street.

CFGT (1270 Alma QC) had to go back to the CRTC with an alternate frequency after it was denied its initial choice of 97.7 for an AM-to-FM move last year. The station applied for 104.5 instead, and now that move has been granted, still with 50 kW.

We had to go digging to find out where Middle Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, is located - it's a small town some 30 km northeast of Halifax - but we had a good reason for doing so: that community of fewer than 700 people is getting a new radio station. Paul Blackmore has been granted a new 50-watt commercial station on 107.3, which will carry a mix of rock, classic rock, oldies, country, local news and sports.

And while we noted last week that Montreal's CJAD (800) had added "Coast to Coast AM" in its overnight hours, we neglected to mention the local show that was knocked off the schedule in the process. Sol Boxenbaum had been hosting the overnight hours on CJAD, and he's now out of a job there.

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